don’t turn around

01Dec09

Juggling a lot right now…this is evidenced by my recent, intense, recurring dreams about not being able to find my schedule on my new iPod, pressing every button but still being unsuccessful, missing all of my work and life appointments and going into complete and utter panic.

Meh, like most of my dreams.

Oddly also like most of my dreams I end up making out with a lumberjack at the end.

Filed under: among the cheesiest things I have ever said, glimpses of the piping hot bowl of crazy that is me, probably shouldn't have said that, what i did last night   |  Leave a Comment

hits you when it’s too late

18Nov09

Throughout my latest endeavor I made myself a lot of promises.  I won’t get too involved, I’ll be careful, I’ll be smart, I’ll be realistic, I won’t take anything to seriously.  I’ll take everything one day at a time.

I have stuck with almost all of them.  Okay, mostly none of them.  Okay, some of them.

The truth is that staying realistic meant that I knew that eventually I would get hurt.  Staying realistic also means that if I feel something I have to let myself feel it.  I can’t just pretend like everything is fine.

Being a woman is a lot like being on an amusement park ride.  More so in the puke your guts out sort of way than in the excitement sort of way.

Well, maybe a mix.  Altogether life is full of a lot of surprises.  The interesting thing about the unknown and its varying aspects is that your character and prowess are not measured by what gets thrown at you but instead by what you do about it.

Lately my life has been in most categories more of the same.  I am becoming dissatisfied with the norm.  Up to this point my reaction to this level of restlessness has been to complain, whine, and continue, changing nothing.

Many times we’ve all heard the phrase that when life hands you lemons, make lemonade, or if we continue performing the exact same actions but expecting different results this is only the definition of insanity.  Now I don’t intend to Sarah Palin on about this sort of thing, but instead to make this point:  I can whine and complain, or I can change.  I can become someone I would rather be, or I can become day by day more negative and more miserable and thereby turn from the Pollyanna I once was into a raving depressed lunatic.

I keep doing the same things and I complain like a jerk when I achieve the same results.  Parts of life feel impossible to tackle.  This way of living is completely unnecessary and I am at least 93% to blame.

I can’t do much about circumstances.  Life will throw me things that frustrate and hurt me until the end of time.  I can, however, do what I can to become resilient, and yet have a heart.

I have always liked change…but far more so when it was put upon me and far less so when I had to be the catalyst.

This seems impossible.  But I can complain all day long and I feel providence itself will lead me right back to the same place every time.

Mirror.

 

Filed under: life overdramatized   |  Leave a Comment

working against me

14Nov09

I have been strongly encouraged to bring a date to my work holiday party in a few weeks.  When I said that I was pretty sure I’d be showing up solo to this function, our receptionist said encouragingly, well, you’ve got a few weeks.  Surely you could meet someone in that amount of time!

I had a dark J.D. fantasy moment right there—where suddenly I grabbed her by the shoulders and joyfully exclaimed, “Really?!  Thank you!  Three weeks?!  Oh my goodness!  And to think that all these years I have been turning away amazingly awesome handsome honorable suitors left and right because I didn’t think I had ENOUGH TIME.  Thank goodness you have solved all of my problems!  I will be sure to bring a date now!”  And then I shook her and slammed her head into the table a few times.  She looked at me and blinked and said, “You’re welcome,” with a smile.

I begin to wonder if the restlessness I feel lately is not restlessness at all—only fear.  Fear that now that my life is more stable (I have an advanced degree and a relatively stable job) that people will begin to notice that my lack of bringing handsome men around on my arm had nothing to do with the fact that I was busy but instead has everything to do with the fact that I am completely undesirable.

Filed under: life overdramatized, obsessions, what i did last night   |  1 Comment

and she doesn’t think that I can hear her

14Nov09

I have been processing through some things lately that I haven’t really been open to sharing with people.  As a result I have been severely sleep deprived.  Normally I am sleep deprived because I can’t think—rather I am thinking so much I just can’t rest.  It has been altogether different this time.  Something in my life feels so gaping, so unfinished, that I don’t want the day to be over.  I have felt this way before from time to time but it has never interfered with my daily life to this degree.  I am trying not to be overly concerned, and I do try from time to time to talk to someone.

Recently a friend said to me that the hope would be that I could find an activity that would allow me to completely clear my mind and focus on something altogether different.  Or better yet to focus on nothing.  The specific suggestion was exercise.

This got me thinking a lot about coping mechanisms—the things we do sometimes to survive, thrive…escape.

The last couple of nights have been really difficult for me.  Two nights ago I was tired but could not bring myself to end the day.  Something felt missing and I did everything I could (save for sleep) that I could think of to distract  myself.  I can’t even seem to be productive in these moments; it is only a perfect state of utter restlessness.

This is a new experience for me.  I have been hurt, elated, overwhelmed, “had a lot on my mind,” and more, but the state of…the gnawing sensation that something in my life is incomplete…it just feels like there is a giant hole in my life and I must not rest until it’s filled.  Problem is I can’t be certain where the hole even is much less how I go about filling it.

Someone encouraged me recently, “you tend to be the kind of person who just bounces around from opportunity to opportunity; you are satisfied with variety.  You should consider having a few things in your life that you are very strategic about—things that you hammer away at for a period of time and then see results, breakthrough…”

My one friend tells me I should find a mind-blowing hobby.  Someone else says I should be more strategic.  My roommates and I are doing a leadership group in our home once a week.  We’re studying priorities and discipline and how these things make you a better employee, a stronger leader.  Perhaps a generally more successful and efficient person.

Anyone who knows me knows that discipline is the one thing in my life I have felt like I could not tackle.  So much so that I pretty much don’t try.

I haven’t really resolved to a specific routine since obtaining my full time job.  I don’t know why I expected to.  I have never really had a specific routine that I’ve followed in life.  I have indeed kind of bounced around.

In my line of work we call that putting out fires.

Maybe I have been limiting myself to putting out the fires and that’s why there is this huge part of  me that feels so vastly unsettled.

For being logically (i.e., job, etc.) fairly put together, I actually for the first time in years feel just a bit lost.  I hope I don’t drive myself crazy trying to find the missing piece.

Filed under: glimpses of the piping hot bowl of crazy that is me, life overdramatized   |  Leave a Comment

beware of steam

13Nov09

I can think of only a few coping mechanisms that I have used that don’t involve a damaging vice (alcohol, food, sabotage…you know the drill).  They do arguably damage the environment, but it depends on how you structure the argument.

I don’t bust these out very often (mostly because it is rare that I get really upset, and mostly because I generally don’t like people to know what I am up to).  Even when I lived by myself sometimes I would just get in the car and drive to nowhere in particular.  In every place I have ever lived I have mapped out a relatively short and a relatively long “loop” that is not too complicated to drive, not too far from my house, and either fairly out of site or crowded enough that no one will notice me.

Sometimes when I get stressed it helps if I go somewhere that is completely crowded with people.  Think concert, conference, professional athletic event.  I have gone to a few of these functions alone.  This one is hit or miss, though; sometimes energizing and sometimes depressing.  Almost always I leave these situations feeling very introspective.  That can be helpful or dangerous depending on how I had started out.

The end all be all though, when I am raging mad, break stuff mad, hurt someone mad—when I am so hurt that I can’t see a pinhole of light at the end of the tunnel much less imagine a way out, only one thing has ever helped me reach through the anger and try to find the root issue:

Music so loud that it makes every cell in my body hurt coupled with a scalding hot shower.  If I start to sing along to the music I have probably reached a place so dark that I don’t know what to do and I am seemingly trying to call myself out.  If I am quiet, I am probably finding a way to cope.

I have often wondered why in my darkest moments that rage is the only accessible emotion.  It happens so rarely that I take little time to examine it—at least in comparison to the things I do take time to examine.  Altogether I am fortunate that I can sometimes channel my emotions in a way that I can postpone the anger until my roommates leave town.  Maybe because when I get that lost in my emotions I don’t want anyone to be present to ask me any questions.

Last week I was pensive and sad (mostly because I couldn’t sleep).  My roommate said she would just leave me alone so I would feel better.  I actually said, “I never want to be left alone.”  It’s true.  There’s never a moment where I don’t want to be the center of attention.  With one exception.  If you hear excessively loud music and glimpse slightly scalded skin, don’t even look at me.

Filed under: and so it goes, glimpses of the piping hot bowl of crazy that is me, probably shouldn't have said that   |  Leave a Comment